The lithium price reached new heights this week, with lithium carbonate achieving a record high in China.
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence observed the price of Chinese battery grade lithium carbonate climb as high as 532,000 Chinese yuan ($117,781) per tonne (t) on Wednesday.
The leading lithium price reporting agency said this was a 1.7 per cent rise across the past week and continued a record-setting streak for the commodity. The price for Chinese lithium carbonate has jumped 108 per cent year-to-date.
After reaching a record high of 500,500 yuan per tonne in China in mid-September, lithium carbonate has been on a tear, notching new record after new record throughout late September and into October.
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said the price streak was putting increasing pressure on automakers and battery producers to secure supply from mining companies.
Australian Government’s Resources & Energy Quarterly for the September quarter forecast Australia to earn $13.8 billion from lithium exports in the 2022–23 financial year (FY23), which is almost $13 billion more than FY21.
The report said that despite the faltering global economic growth in the June quarter of 2022, sales and production of electric vehicles continued their rapid growth trend.
“Global sales of all types of EVs increased 36 per cent in the year to June 2022 compared with the same period in 2021 – with Chinese sales up 110 per cent, European sales up 6 per cent, and North American sales up 27 per cent,” the report said.
“In China, total EV sales have averaged almost half a million vehicles a month so far in 2022, reaching a peak of 650 thousand vehicles in June.”
The Resources & Energy Quarterly predicted prices for spodumene concentrate – a raw lithium material – to rise from an average of $US598 per tonne in 2021 to $US2730/t in 2022 and $US3280/t in 2023, before pulling back to $US2490/t in 2024.
Prices for lithium hydroxide are expected to lift from an average of $US17,370/t in 2021 to $US38,575/t in 2022 and $US51,510/t in 2023, before cooling to $US37,650/t in 2024.